The Deception Read Free Page B

country, Kate. It is filled with unemployed rascals who would show no respect for a solitary female.”
    I bit my lip. “I’ll get a gun,” I said. “I know how to shoot.” I have never been one to give up easily.
    Louisa cast her eyes upward. “I cannot believe I am having this conversation! Kate. Think. Ifsomeone jumps out at you from the shadows, you will not have time to use a gun.”
    I was not a stupid young girl who knew nothing of the world. I remembered the many times my father had stood between me and some man who had looked at me with hot and greedy eyes. Louisa was right. Unfortunately. I ate a little bit of my soupy ice and cudgeled my brain. Suddenly an idea exploded in my mind with all the brilliance of fireworks in the night sky.
    “I could pretend to be a boy!” I said. “I used to wear breeches to school the horses. If I cut off my hair...” I smiled triumphantly. “What a splendid idea, Louisa! No one would rape a boy!”
    “You are funning me,” my cousin said.
    “Not at all. I assure you, Louisa, I could get a position in any stable I applied to. I really am very good with horses.” No point in false modesty, I thought. The more I considered this idea, the more I liked it. “Think of Rosalind in As You Like It, ” I said enthusiastically. “She fooled everyone. Why shouldn’t I?”
    Louisa was looking at me with a mixture of admiration and horror. “I don’t care if you are a genius with horses.” There was still color in her cheeks, and she looked almost pretty. “No matter what position you might manage to find, Kate, you will not be given the luxury of a room to yourself. You will have to share your living quarters, and there is no possible way you can keep your sex a secret if you have to share a room with other men.”
    I scowled. I did not like the way she kept pouring cold water on all my beautiful schemes. “You are so gloomy, Louisa!” I exclaimed.
    “I am realistic, my dear,” she said. The pretty pink faded from her cheeks. “Find a husband, Kate. It is the only solution.”
     

Chapter Two
     
    My entrance into London society, or the ton, as it was called in the newspapers, was hardly an unqualified success. Because of my uncle and Louisa I was invited to a number of the larger balls, but it was clear that I would never be considered worthy enough to be admitted into that inner sanctum of the English aristocracy, Almack’s Assembly Rooms.
    My dance card was always full at the balls we did attend, and I was invited to a host of other parties: routs, breakfasts, musical evenings, and so on, but the young men who danced and talked with me were clearly more interested in flirting than in proposing.
    Since I am being honest, I will have to admit that I was disappointed. I yearned for a home with all my heart, and, much as I might despise Cousin Louisa’s advice, I knew she was right when she said that in order to find a home I had first to find a man. I suppose this strong desire for permanency stemmed from my nomadic upbringing. One always seems to want what one does not have.
    My uncle had been away from Charlwood for most of the winter, so these weeks in London were the first time I had ever spent an extended period in his company, and he did not grow on one. In fact, the more I was with him, the more uneasy he made me. I kept telling myself that I was being ridiculous, that he was my mother’s brother, that he had taken me in, had lavished money on me, et cetera.
    But I did not like his eyes. On the surface they seemed so extraordinarily clear and direct, but when one returned his gaze, one found that one could not see in. There was something about that deceptively cloudless gaze that reminded me of someone, and it wasn’t my mother. I had a feeling that this resemblance was the cause of my apprehension, but I didn’t place it until the evening of the Cottrells’ come-out ball for their second daughter.
    I remember that I was standing in the Cottrell ballroom,